When coffee’s in your blood and you’re an entrepreneur in the business—chances are you’re not going be caught napping when the next big trend opportunity arrives.
That’s exactly the story of John Goerke, who started the Caribbean Coffee Co. (CCC) back in 1986—back when Starbucks was a five-store chain. Twenty-five years later, Goerke says he found the US wholesale coffee industry much larger, more competitive—and literally much more of a grind. It was then, in 2011, that he began shifting from the coffee bean business and experimenting with cold coffee alternatives.